New spin cycle

When Piers Morgan claimed, in an interview in The Spectator, that Cherie Blair was trying to have him sacked, the Daily Mirror's editor provided an easy headline for last Friday's national papers. In Downing Street, though, attention focused on a section of the interview that the dailies largely ignored.

Morgan suggested that Tony Blair could be forced out of office, saying there was such a "mood" in the Cabinet. "If it happened, I think Brown would make a brilliant Labour premier for Mirror readers," Morgan said. "He sees it as his destiny and is a genuine person with no interest in the trappings of power. I talk to him a lot."

Morgan's comments hardly came as a shock to the Prime Minister and his allies, who for months have suspected him of campaigning to replace Blair with Gordon Brown. The only surprise was that Morgan had been so open about his agenda.

The Chancellor, despite assiduously wooing the Mirror and other papers, is believed to be less than amused that Morgan has revealed his paper's hand. "He feels hurt by friendly fire," said one Brown ally. A Blair aide said: "Piers has blown the gaff."

The episode highlights the changing and volatile relationships between No 10 and Fleet Street. The clashes of this year, which reached their climax during the bizarre controversy over Blair's role at the Queen Mother's funeral, mask a myriad of ups and downs with individual papers. Even before Morgan's admission, it was the tabloids that usually gave Blair and his team the most headaches. "Editors are like kids in the playground: they demand their sweeties and are furious when another kid gets one," a No 10 insider said.

The politicos also play the game – Morgan noted ruefully that Cherie Blair switched a deal with the Mirror on a campaign appeal for Barnardo's to the News of the World in protest at his paper's attacks on Stephen Byers.

The Mirror and The Sun are locked in a price-cutting battle for circulation; The Sun was on sale for 10p in London yesterday, half the Mirror's reduced price. But they also fight each other through the politicians. The Mirror appears to think its readers are tiring of Blair and promotes Brown as the "premier in waiting" who deals with Britain's problems while Blair kowtows to President George Bush. The Mirror produced a very odd front page after Brown unveiled the Government's spending review last week, showing a big elephant shoving aside a small one. The headline read: "Pack your trunk Tony, I'm in charge".

The Sun, believing the Mirror is "over the top" and out of touch with its readers, and sensing a market opportunity, has reacted by becoming more pro-Blair – despite Rupert Murdoch's wariness about his pro-European views. When Brown was accused of keeping his head down at the height of the royal funeral row, a Sun leading article said: "One man is rejoicing at what HE sees as the beginning of the end of the Blairs. That man is Gordon Brown, who may be making the CLASSIC error of the overly ambitious: he's dreaming about his next job while still doing his old one. Watch your backs, Mr and Mrs Blair."

The other change inside Downing Street this year is that the vitriol heaped on Blair by traditionally Tory papers such as the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph during the "Black Rod" funeral row has finally convinced the Prime Minister that it is not worth expending so much time and energy on wooing the enemy. In No 10, the Telegraph is seen as more balanced in its criticism than the Mail, which is now regarded as beyond the pale.

Top of the Christmas-card list is The Times, which receives more "on a plate" stories handed out by Downing Street, the Treasury and other departments than any other paper, often in the form of fairly soft interviews with a minister. The paper's new editor, Robert Thomson, is on friendly terms with Blair and his ministers.

Perhaps to counterbalance the resumption of hostilities with the Tory papers, Blair's team has worked to rebuild its bridges with The Guardian, the Financial Times and The Independent, with whom it has had its differences. The Blair camp has in the past complained that New Labour lacks the natural press allies enjoyed by Margaret Thatcher and was being attacked from left and right. Now Blair aides talk of a more "grown-up" relationship with The Guardian, FT and The Independent, in which the Government does not demand slavish support but the papers do not join the Mail's and Telegraph's attempts to become the "real opposition" at a time when the Tory party offers little real threat.

The Sunday papers, relentlessly fed by New Labour in opposition, are now seen in No 10 as having turned into a monster trying to devour the Government. So their weekly lobby briefings were scrapped long ago, and they have been virtually written off by Downing Street, even if some advisers regard the mighty Sunday Times as the single most important paper, because of its readership profile.

As the Commons starts its summer recess tomorrow, the pitched battle between the Government and the media, which reached its height with the Black Rod saga, has cooled down. Cabinet ministers such as Charles Clarke, David Blunkett and Robin Cook, who all launched strong attacks on the press, have gone quiet, perhaps realising that they had started a fight they could not win. Downing Street realises its huge mistake in taking three publications to the Press Complaints Commission over allegations that Blair muscled in on the royal funeral, which only gave the claims a much wider airing when it backed down.

Realising that "spin" had become a damaging symbol of the public's distrust in the Government, Blair allies claim it has now entered a "post-spin era". At one level, of course, that is a piece of spin in itself. But it is also true. The "doctors" no longer "spin" every speech or announcement in advance. Blair is more visible, hence his appearance last week before a Commons select committee chairman and his regular press conferences, another of which takes place on Thursday.

From the autumn, Downing Street will try to dilute the power of Westminster lobby correspondents to act as the filter through which the public views the Government. There will be more press conferences open to all journalists, with other ministers following Blair's lead in going "upfront".

Blair aides hope the politicians are edging towards the "new settlement" with the media first outlined in these pages in January by Philip Gould, the Prime Minister's pollster. The Government spins less and hopes the media in turn become less obsessed with the "process" of government, focusing more on policy.

The Black Rod affair may just have been a watershed. The press had its feeding frenzy; for a while the Tory papers scented Blair's blood. But the opinion polls didn't move. His aides noted less of a frenzy over the private tuition for Blair's two sons and plans to refurbish No 10. "We have chilled out, and we hope the press has calmed down a bit, too," one insider said yesterday.

While the Blair camp professes to worry less about tomorrow's headlines, his foot soldiers know full well that they cannot desert the battlefield. So it was no surprise that Alastair Campbell, the director of communications and strategy, was present at the wedding party of Rebekah Wade, the News of the World editor, and Ross Kemp. As Blair himself once said of The Sun: "I would rather be riding the back of the tiger than having it rip my throat out."